The Voyage: Chapter 6
Josh's P.O.V I had been observing my friend's progress the whole time. I saw that my children (and my sister) and our new friend, Stephanie had made a new friend, although he had double crossed them one time. Anyways, I woke up from my coma early, probably because Bella's purpose is to only keep me safe. Besides, my barrier stage has just reached 4/5 now, which means that I could go 4 years without going into a coma. I removed the transfusion of nutrients carefully from my vein, and once I did that, I quickly seal my open vein with bandage, in order to not lose too much blood. Stella's P.O.V I began to get bored. We have been walking for almost a day, and the Colloseum hasn't come into view yet. Just then, there's a sound behind us. I looked behind, and saw people screaming, as the black dogs came out of nowhere and ran through the streets of Rome. I wondered if they are a part of Nightraiders, the group that we were briefed by Chiron that they took slaves. What I wonder turned out to be true. Nightraiders do claim victims by kidnapping them, and sending them into slavery camps, which I believe is somewhere here. The dogs ran around and they came to a nearby house, and as the dog came near the house, the dog howled so loud that people from 4 blocks of houses were forced to cover their ears or else their eardrums will pop. After the target is incapacitated, as fast as a viper, the dog started biting the residents of the house, with multiple dogs approaching the house to grab more people if there is any, and they move to the next house to claim their next victim in Rome and so on. Sometimes, the residents of the house is well-trained, and they defend their house well from the dogs, and these houses are generally that the Nightraiders won't barging into, since they don't want slaves that are powerful and rebellious. PING! I quickly drew my 3 feet sword and braced myself for trouble. My other friends did so too. I searched for any possible trouble. "Umm... sorry." Lara said, holding a rock. "What???" I asked. "Lara, this is not the time to play games, and please, don't muck around." Then we resumed walking. After about 15 minutes later, we were exhausted, since we have walked from the airport to somewhere in the city of Rome without anywhere to walk in particular. So we decided to rest for a while. We sat at a restaurant, looking very tired and exhausted. Thankfully, we weren't noticed by the owner of the restaurant, or else we will be asked to leave, and if we do get spotted, we just manipulate the mist so that the store owner will think that we have been here for a long time, and is just waiting for the meal (Wow, this must have been the coolest mist manipulation ever). Just then, the store owner came from inside the house, making a spaghetti for us, and as soon as the meal has arrived, we thank the owner and started eating. The spaghetti is very delicious. It doesn't taste like any other spaghetti, this one is amazing. From the tip of the spaghetti's noodle, to the very seasoning of the spaghetti. This type of spaghetti doesn't need a cheese for the meal to become complete. This already tastes very complete. After we ate our spaghetti meal, I decided to leave a small amount of cash in the table, just for the owner, to tell the owner indirectly, that the meal that he/she makes is very good and should make new ones. That gave us more power to move on, and we're pretty much in a good shape to continue our journey. But Lara appears that she doesn't want to move on. She appears to be exhausted. "Well, what are you waiting for, Lara?" Jarren asked. "Why are you like that?" "I'm still tired, guys." Lara said, as she is about to go to sleep. "Why don't you guys go on without me." "Nuh-uh." Jarren said, holding Lara in his grasp. Lara is hammering Jarren with her fists, but Jarren appears to felt close to nothing. "It's dangerous to be alone, you can't..." Just then, I heard another bark, and we were forced to cover our ears, and when the loud bark receded, I noticed that Lara is gone. "LARA!!!" Jarren screamed. Man, can this day get any worse?" Yes it does. A men in pitch black armor suddenly appeared a few meters beside all of us, then we drew our weapons, including Dallas. Dallas quickly warped behind the man and stabbed him in the back. The man screamed in pain, and Dallas threw him at our direction. Melody pulled the purple jewel from the helm and we stripped him of his armor. "WHO SENT YOU!!!" Bella screamed at his face. The guy's expression is afraid, like he wasn't ready to be captured. I scanned for a house where we can interrogate this guy, and fortunately I found one. It's just across the street. So we decided to head there, while making sure that the guy we just caught did not escape. I entered the house, and it seemed to be abandoned just a few hours ago, because the house doesn't look very old to me. Once we entered the house, Bella immediately slapped the man's cheek very hard. "Now, start talking! Who are you working for?" The man is looking for a way out, but when he realizes that he is not going nowhere, he finally gives up. "I'm working for-- for Nadine." I pulled up a syringe that I got from the Camp. It's full of poison and can kill a person within 10 minutes after injection. I pulled the guy and put the syringe at his arm. "Now, you better start talking, or I will put this into your body and you will die within minutes!" The man looked afraid. "I'm sorry.... I was... I made a bad choice.... I shouldn't...." Then he started writhing again. Bella lost her patience and injected the poison into his arm. The man screamed in pain as I could hear his pulse beating faster. "Now, why don't you be nice and tell us why you want to kidnap us. If you be nice," Bella held up an antidote syringe. "We can cure you of the poison." "Why should I trust you??" The man said, coughing up blood. "Oh, so you don't want to live anymore, huh? Well..." Bella is about to throw the antidote out while the man screamed. "DON'T!!" Bella kept her syringe at her. "Please, I need the antidote. I will tell you everything." "Then hurry up. The clock is ticking." Bella said, while holding the man at his throat. "I had a.... *throws up blood* a bad life, and I want to *throws up blood* live a new life." "Is this how you live a new life?" Bella asked. "A life of slavery?" "Please..." The man pleaded. "The antidote." He was about to grab it but Bella pulled it away from him. "Not until you tell me something that we need to know." Melody said. "Now, what we want to know is... Where is the slave trade is held?" Then, he pointed behind him. At first thought, he was pointing at Jarren, but when Jarren moved, I realized that he was pointing at the building adjacent to this one. So that's where the slave trade is held all along. "Now, as promised." Bella said, while injecting the antidote to the man's hand. The man gasped and collapsed. Stephanie caught him. Stephanie put her hand in his head, and the man's head shook for a while, then fell limp again. I thought he's dead, but his chest still moves up and down, meaning that he is breathing, which gave us a relief. The slave trade is just a few blocks away, but we're obviously very tired, and we need to rest in this place, so we bring the man to sleep outside, and we shut the door and go inside. Unfortunately, this is only a one-story building and there's no bed in here so we don't have any other choice other than sleep at the floor. In my dreams, I saw a bunch of slaves crammed into a cage. The cage is small enough to fit 5 people, but nevertheless, they crammed 10-12 people inside the cage and made them suffocate. There's more people crammed into that cage as the number of slave captured increased. Nadine just sat in her throne like a queen. "So, how was our business?" She asked one of her servants. "Yes, it went quite well." The female servant said. "And, we found this girl wondering in the city of rome." Then, the door burst open, then it revealed Lara Croft, she was brought back into slavery, with chains that bound her body which made her almost impossible to move. "Well well well..." Nadine smirked. "It if isn't that old lady Croft. Why are you running away from your master, Lara?" Lara just lay down there, glaring at the face of Nadine. Nadine waved her hand and a bunch of whips appeared in midair and starting whipping Lara's behind. Lara screamed in pain, louder and louder each time, and she begged Nadine to stop. "Didn't your master made you swear to the river styx that you're going to be a slave forever, are you not?" Nadine growled at her, and with a wave of her hand, the chains glowed red, and Lara screamed in pain, as the chains sizzled. Right now, I could tell Lara's body is burning since the chains were made hot by Nadine. "And, any news about our most trusted assassin?" Nadine asked. "Oh, you mean, Eliott?" The female servant asked. Nadine nodded. "We have not heard of him, madam. But do not despair, he will do his job." "I assume he would." Nadine said. "I knew him for a long time. It is the best that we don't interrupt him because the last time we did, he was at the brink of bringing a shipment of valuable slaves while he was interrupted and all the slaves got free." "Lady Nadine!" One servanet burst through the grand hall of her throne, and Nadine glared viciously at her servant. "He... Eliott.... is.... captured." The servant is out of breath. "What??" Nadine's royal nostrils flared. "I shall deal with the McLeans myself!" Then she vanished from her throne room. Bella shook me awake, but I am still tired, which is weird since we have been asleep for 8 hours. The man who tried to kidnap all of us appeared to be named Eliott, and he is still sleeping outside, his body very cold, and shivering. We decided to drag Eliott inside, and slap him until he is awake. He awoke just as soon as I delivered the first slap, and as he woke, he looked at us with very frantic eyes and starts running away, but Bella caught him. "Oh no you don't!" Bella grabbed Eliott's hands as he tried to squirm out of her grasp. "Please!!" Eliott pleaded. "Just let me go!" "And why do we want to do that?" Bella glared at him. "You have kidnapped my friends, made the world in a slavery, AND YOU TRIED TO KIDNAP US!!! You're going to tell me, WHY!!" Eliott appeared to be shivering, and as I watched, his pants begin to get wet. He wet his pants! We all started laughing, including Jarren, Melody, Stephanie and Dallas. But Bella kept her eyes fixed at Eliott's eyes. "Please! I told you, I was...." "Nevermind." Bella said, as she grabbed the nearby huge plastic and bagged Eliott and carry it with her. "Come on. Let's go to the slave trade. There's a lot of slaves that we need to free." Bella said, as Jarren, Stephanie, Melody and myself prepared ourselves to go to the slave trade. As we went to go to the slave trade, I noticed that Stephanie was radiating a strange demigod aura, and a couple of explosions are heard in the target building, which is only 2 blocks away from this house. We rushed to the target building, which is the house that I suspect that the slave trade is held. As we rushed to the target building, all we saw is a broken alarm and a couple of broken guns, and it appears that they just get broken recently. I don't know how did someone manage to break it before us but I think Dallas did it because he just appeared beside us. "Umm... Dallas? Did you just do that?" Melody asked. "Did what?" Dallas asked. Then he looked the entrance, with the alarm box sizzling. Wow, looks like someone did the work for us. Thank you, whoever you are. Dallas's P.O.V I swear to the river styx it's not me who did it. It must have been some kind of a demigod who give off an ancient aura that makes technologies haywire or short-circuit. We decided to enter the house, and more explosions heard from the inside. Wow, this is getting very weird. It appears someone was here before us. "Aaarrrgggghhhh!" I heard a scream, then he desperately tried to remove his metal armor, which is short-circuiting, but fails. He ended up getting electrocuted by his own armor and fell to his demise. I laughed at the sight, then kept walking, and heard more explosions from down the stairs, so we decided to go down the stairs, and just then, I heard this speaker saying: "...125, 130, 135, 135..... 140." I remember this place. We were all lined up just a few rooms away in order to queue for buying a slave. I remember Nadine glaring at me and I remember why she had kidnapped me. She wanted me to buy this slave, and I did what I asked her to do, except that now Lara has been taken away from me and is resold. As we get closer, I know that the slave trade is still going, and it's going really bad. I saw the same girl that used to be with me, and she got this cold aura that makes me attracted to her. She has icy blue hair and eyes, and a skin as soft as snow. She is nevertheless, one of the people I knew from the slave trade. Meanwhile, Bella is trying to make Eliott stop writhing by hitting him in the head with a wooden club. The bag became calm again as Eliott was knocked unconscious. I really wanted Eliott to participate in this, but it's too bad because Bella kept beating him with a wooden stick so he would stay out cold. I could have sworn that Stephanie didn't look too focused in here. Sometimes, she looked blank, and when she came around, she told us that the slave toll is getting higher. Stephanie came to us. She seemed to be radiating some kind of energy. I sensed a very powerful aura coming out of Stephanie. This is a familiar aura. I remember my mother testing for a new weapon called the Electro-Magnetic Pulse (EMP). It radiated a huge amount of energy. Stephanie must have radiated 500 times stronger than the EMP. So that's why we were able to get through the defenses. Stephanie must have been unknowingly uses her latent power in order to kill off the defenses. But of course Stephanie hadn't known that yet. We snuck in the slave auction, and immediately caught sight of my partner, who's name is apparently to be Shirato Fuuka. She is nevertheless, one of my toughest partner, and I kinda wished we were together, but... she is evil, and if I showed her that I am a good guy, she would kill me for sure. We saw a bunch of slaves getting crammed in one small cage, and they were writhing for space, and I could see some cages were so full of slaves that some were forced on her knees so that other slaves can mount on top of her, and that didn't look good because the slave that mount on top of one another can make the other slaves have a back pain and eventually led to the breaking of the vertebral column that causes him/her to be paralysed. "Slave #1980, come to the stage." The slave trader said. Now I looked at this slave trader, and when I looked at him, he seems very familiar to me. His eyes were brown, and his hair is teal. I definitely know this guy, this guy is my brother! Darrel Curtis! Well, not exactly my brother. Like, a friend that I had considered him a best friend so much that I ended up calling him a brother. I started weeping, small tears found in the corner of my eyes, and I felt a tap behind me. "Dallas, what are we going to do now?" Bella asked. "Well..." I searched for some hidden spots, but so far, no blind spots. Everywhere is engulfed with camera, and the slave toll is getting much more higher, and in a few days, I figure it would reach 3000. I saw Stephanie following us, and Bella told her to stay behind, but Stephanie insisted that she wants to see what is going on. When Stephanie gets closer, I could hear the speakers rattling. The lights on the stage rattled, and the bulbs around the stage exploded. Then slave buyers screamed in panic as they left the stage. Nadine is trying to convince them that it's only a part of a show, which the slave buyers knew it wasn't. Oh man, I guess this is the time we go loud now. Bella, Stella, Stephanie, Melody, Jarren and I burst out of an opening and began the attack. I warped behind a guard, stabbed him in the back, and did the same for the other people. Stella and Melody conjured the whole place in total darkness, so no one can move. Melody's P.O.V I have a perfect vision in darkness, and also in light. In total darkness, I moved towards the stairs and found a guard looking around, and this would be a great opportunity to kill him. I clamped his mouth with my hands and stabbed him in the back. He muffled scream and slowly succumbed to his demise. I slowly let go of him and I looked at the confused Jarren McLean. Unlike Me and and Stella, he cannot see in the darkness, and therefore I need to assist him. I approached Jarren as Jarren startled when I touched him and I have to grab his arm and restrain him and then I told him that I am Melody. Then, Jarren calmed down and I release him from my grip. Since Jarren's vision is going to be completely blotted out from the darkness, I am going to be the one that guide his every move. I realized that Dallas didn't have night vision at this time around also, so I decided to scare him a little. Dallas is wondering where are we, and I spotted him just in the middle of the stage. I approached him slowly and poked him in the back. Dallas shouted, "Whoa!" then he whirled towards my direction. Dallas is obviously freaking out, because he is panicking. I decided to poke him more, and this time, in his ****. Dallas screamed like a little girl and jumped. "Who was that?" Dallas looked panicked. I giggled, and decided to leave him. I got other things to worry about. The servant of Nadine began throwing flares in order to counter the total darkness. I and Stella made the total darkness dissipate, and charged to the door on our right. We encountered many warriors with thick armor. I unleashed a laser blast and made a hole through the walls and people were screaming in pain because of the intense heat. We continued to pursue them and we were faced with loads of resistance. A group of people wearing a big armor were guarding the way. Nadine laughed from the loudspeaker. "End of the line, fools!" Category:The Voyage Category:Chapter Page